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Clayton Christensen on Ideas
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Clayton Christensen on Ideas
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The most dangerous ideas don't look irrelevant.
Clayton Christensen called this the innovator's dilemma. The best companies don't fail because they're lazy or stupid. They fail because they're too good at what they already do.
They listen to customers. Invest in improvements. Chase higher margins. All the right moves. And it kills them.
Disruptive ideas almost never look good at first. They're cheaper, simpler, worse by traditional metrics. Existing customers don't want them. The margins are terrible. Every rational analysis says ignore it.
So the smart companies do.
In 2000, Netflix offered itself to Blockbuster for $50 million. Blockbuster passed. They were making $800 million a year in late fees alone. Why would they care about some DVD-by-mail startup?
Today Netflix is worth over $150 billion. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy.
The pattern is everywhere. The threat isn't the idea that looks dangerous. It's the one that looks too small to matter.